[REVIEW] New 2017 Mamonde Eoseong Cho Pore Clean Clay Mask

This clay mask is part of the new collection Mamonde released, of which the Calendula sleeping mask is also part of. There are other two masks in this collection, but other than the (calendula) light weight sleeping mask, this one caught my eye just as quickly. It specifically says “pore clean” and most of us know how difficult it is to actually clean the pores!

Eoseong Cho goes by several names, the most interesting being “fish mint” and “lizard tail”. Regardless, it’s a plant native to Southeast Asia so it is an amazingly appropriate product to add to Korean cosmetics.

Claims:

-Smooth wash off clay mask that contains Eoseong Cho leaves and aims to reduce sebum and close the pores.

-Formulated with eco-friendly ingredients that are environmentally friendly, it cleanses the thick layers of dead skin and purifies the excess sebum, helping to achieve smooth pores.

-Soft clay and fine walnut shells help to remove dead skin cells and make skin clean and smooth.

Mamonde Eoseong Cho Pore Clean Clay Mask Review:

As you can see by the frontal photo, it’s a pretty boring package. It’s the same as the Calendula sleeping pack (or they wouldn’t be in the same collection) but with… an ugly gray green, sort of like snot color after you have been out in the Chinese yellow dust the whole day. So let’s skip the design part, shall we?

The product inside looks terribly more appealing! A nice and fresh mint color, with a gray tone that reminisces of real clay, and not an exaggerated gray overwhelming the mint as in the outside package.

After putting my finger in there I actually felt these lumps. I wondered what they were until the day I write this review.

You can see it here, they are not small lumps at all. And they are hard. They are the fine walnut shells they mentioned in the product description, and now I see that they are actual nut shells crushed into this reduced size.

Here you can see the moment I applied the clay, a thin layer that shows basically a mint gray color, and a thick layer where the mint color shows properly. You can also see some scratches on the clay, and I want to talk to you about that.

They hurt a lot (sob) while I was applying the clay, it was made with the walnut shells which are very hard and I wasn’t prepared for that. It literally scratched me and it actually hurt. On this photo I had already used the clay a few times so I applied it gently from that first time onwards.

The thing is that supposedly it’s the walnuts that do the exfoliation part so that’s a little of a disappointment. You either get scratched or no exfoliation…

The mask, again, has a relatively strong smell. Also again, it’s pleasant and it’s probably similar to the scent of that flower (I wouldn’t know because I never smelled it). Mamonde, being a flowery brand, has intensive scents when it comes to their flower products, but then again they are not as intense as Sulhwasoo (just for reference).

Here is a before and after photo after me applying the mask every day on my nose for a whole week in a row.

In theory you should apply these masks once or twice a week, but since the mask is so gentle I saw no other solution.

The mask is really gentle if you don’t scratch yourself, the clay itself doesn’t really dry the skin much and doesn’t really clean the pores as they say it does. After one week of using it every day, however, you see some results.

On the second photo I couldn’t focus it well because my pores basically aren’t as bad as they were. Those small white hairs are, well, small hairs (unrelated to the pores). Although the big pores are a little cleaner (honestly the Innisfree clay masks are all more effective on this area) this persistent light clay mask was able to clean the very small pores on the left photo. Although unfocused (and again, I’m sorry for that) on the right photo where the light is shining on my skin you can see way less small lumps than on the photo on the left.

Honestly speaking, although I like it the way my skin turned out after using this, the small walnut shells bother me a lot since I have to do everything slowly and with my fingers (because a brush doesn’t have the sensitivity to know which pressure is too much). I still scratched myself a few times by accident.

However, for people who don’t have sensitive skin this mask is probably very good. It does a steady exfoliation and pore cleansing, but gentle enough that you can use it regardless of your skin being dry or oily.

I mean, real exfoliation and actual clay masking, I wish I could do that! But I can’t do any exfoliation that has actual grains in the product (I found one exception in 3 years), I always get scratch marks (light but still).